Epigram
Some people say we've got a lot to stop us,
Some say we have a lot of nerve,
But I say we won't quit pushing until we get what we deserve.
We have been pitied and we have been scorned,
They say, we shouldn't have ever been born.
But just as it takes two bad eyes to make others swear, ha,
Brother we just can't let them get our share.
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Parody lyrics by Phil Vlasak, the finest song satirist in the blind community, based on the song, "Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud" by the late legend James Brown. For the complete lyrics to "I'm Blind And I'm Proud," go to the heading with this title at the end of this article.
Introduction
Recently, both on his blog and in his podcast Jonathan Mosen has been talking about the notion of "blind pride" and providing examples of things in which blind people can be proud. Jonathan is certainly a leader in the blindness community and has been a valuable resource for the blind for many years. Jonathan has been doing Internet radio and podcasting for just about as long as those technologies have existed. Jonathan is also the author of numerous books about various technologies that blind people can use which are especially informative for blind computing novices but I've found some valuable tips and tricks in Jonathan's books as well.
On the issue of "blind pride," I generally agree with Jonathan's blog article and the segment he did on his podcast about the same. I believe there are a lot of things in which blind people can and should feel proud. At the same time, I see many structural and systemic problems around blindness that can lead a blind person to terrific frustration, anger, depression and loneliness. In this article, I'm going to repeat some of what Jonathan wrote in his piece to further emphasize people and events in which we blind people can be proud. I'll also detail some areas that have caused me terrific frustration and anger over the years. If you haven't already, I recommend stopping here and reading Jonathan's article which was republished in NFB's Braille Monitor.
One major difference between Jonathan's peace and this article is that mine is very US centric but does mention Canada in passing. I don't know a lot about the lives of blind people outside North America. If you live elsewhere on the planet, please do write a comment below and tell us both the good and bad about being blind in your locale.
As I do with all of my articles, I have sent this one in a number of draft forms to what I call my informal editorial committee. These people include the members of the creative writing group of which I've been a member for a really long time and a number of friends who have given me helpful feedback over the years and both were very helpful with this piece. My informal editors also made this article a bit harder than some others as my editors didn't always agree on some of the issues I raise here and a number of them hoped I would add more to the article. To be certain, I agree with the opinions expressed in this essay but some of those who helped disagree with one or two points and one friend disagrees with the entire premise of blind pride, this article and what Jonathan had written as well. I work my hardest to make these pieces as good as possible and I'm incredibly grateful to those who helped edit this one.
The First Mention Of Blind Pride
As we did the research for this article, much to my surprise Jonathan was not the first person to raise the issue of blind pride. While "blind pride" is a rarely used term, we found a ReddIt thread discussing blind pride that was posted a number of years ago. Another blind blogger with whom I was not familiar wrote an article about blind pride about three years ago and it uses a paraphrased James Brown line as its title, "Say It Loud, I'm Blind And I'm Proud" which I also use in this piece. You can read this other blog article [on this page][].
Jonathan's Article and Podcast
Jonathan's piece, "Why I'm Proud To Be Blind" is really very good and as I suggest above, I recommend you read it in its entirety. It's not very long. I think Jonathan got all of the high points correct and he inspired me to write this article. ).
People And Events I'd Like To Add To Jonathan's List Of Reasons To Be Proud
In addition to the quite comprehensive list of reasons a blind person should be proud that Jonathan lists in his piece, I'd like to add a few that he did not mention.
*My good friend Sina Bahram is a great source of pride for me and is the topic of another article entirely about him and his company that I have in the works. I first met Sina when he was 16 years old and have had great pleasure watching him grow from being a really smart kid into a very successful entrepreneur who does among the most interesting projects in accessibility today. He is likely the world's leading expert in inclusive design, has received a number of prestigious awards and does amazing work making museums and other public spaces accessible to all. To boot, Sina was recently selected by Mission: AstroAccess to help them work on accessible space travel for the blind – a notion so cutting edge that I feel a lot of pride when I think about it. Sina recently got to take a ride in the famous vomit comet and experience microgravity. Sina Bahram is a name you should know as I expect his best work is still ahead of him.
*I'd also like to add my friend Lucy Greco to the list of blind people in whom I feel pride. She is a top accessibility professional at a top university, is very active with the Lighthouse in San Francisco and is often one of the loudest voices in support of civil rights for people with disabilities.
*Bryan Bashin, CEO of the Lighthouse in San Francisco, deserves a mention as a person who makes me feel pride. In my reasonably well informed opinion, the LightHouse in SF is an excellent example of how good a blindness agency can be and I'm certain that Bryan will continue to work hard to make it even better.
*I find that I always feel proud when I hear about a blind athlete doing something remarkable. Eric Weinheimer, a blind mountaineer, has climbed the tallest mountains on all of the seven continents., a remarkable achievement for anyone. Rachael Scdoris, a blind woman, has run the famous Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska more than once and the race is known as one of the most grueling and dangerous in the world. And, there are the blind people who aren't famous who run marathons, ski downhill, play golf and participate in other sports that most sighted people think a blind person could not do who make me proud.
*I'm proud to have worked closely with my former colleague Glen Gordon (who is mentioned in Jonathan's article) for six years. Put simply, Glen is one of the greatest Windows hackers out there. He found very clever and creative solutions to very difficult problems and gave JAWS the power it needed to rise to the top of the screen reader market.
- I find pride in successful blind entrepreneurs. Ted Henter (also mentioned in Jonathan's article) and Mike Calvo have both done this. They built businesses that have served the blind community very well for a lot of years without being beholden to sighted investors who cared far more about profits than the blind people who use the technology.
*I'm extremely proud of Mick Curren and Jamie Teh who, while still very young, set out to create a fully functional screen reader using the philosophy of free, libre open source software (FLOSS). Mick and Jamie spent a lot of years of their lives working to make NVDA into a terrific tool and some estimate that it is now the most widely used screen reader in the world.
*I find pride when I think of the work of the blind California attorney Tim Elder. He's directly in the line of fire on cases involving the civil rights of blind and otherwise disabled people and has been very successful in fighting for us.
*I find pride when I hear about blind musicians who can actually make a living with their art. This would include the big stars like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles but also includes the obscure players who perform in local bars regularly enough to pay their rent and feed themselves from their work. Making it as a professional musician is nearly impossible and is probably not a very good avenue too long term success so I find those who make it in music inspirational.
*Lastly, I'm proud of all of the mostly unknown blind people who get up every morning, go through their daily routine and then go to work at a full-time job. With an estimated 70-80% rate of unemployment among totally blind people, these unsung blind people do their work and come home to relatively typical lives. These people overcome a lot of obstacles that their sighted counterparts never encounter but manage to persist and sometimes even thrive as professionals.
Barriers and Frustrations
Jonathan correctly points out that the opposite of pride is shame. I don't feel any shame regarding my blindness but, when I was still low vision, I tried to hide that aspect of my self as often as I could. If I stumbled over a chair or some other obstacle in a bar room, I would rather people think I was drunk than admit I was legally blind. I felt a lot of shame back then but pride in myself and others in our community came to me after I was totally blind and working for Henter-Joyce. My many private conversations with Ted Henter helped my psychology around blindness greatly and for this I will forever be grateful to Ted.
There are, however, a lot of systemic and structural barriers to success for blind people that make many of us feel terrible frustration and, in some cases, anger and even bitterness. Correcting these problems will take a lot of effort, a lot of money from taxpayers and unrelenting leadership like we saw in the documentary, "Crip Camp."
Transportation
Transportation is a problem for nearly all blind people. Those who live in big cities with excellent public transit systems like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto and a few others can get to most places in their area with relative ease; they also will be living in a city with a very high cost of living that is out of the price range of most blind people. Those who reside in locales where there is minimal or no public transportation (in the US at least) need to use Uber, Lyft, taxis, a private driver they hire or rely on para transit if its available in their area. When Uber and Lyft first came online, they were less expensive and more convenient than taxis but, over the years, their prices have crept upward and are now, depending on location and time of day, approximately the same cost as a taxi. I know very few blind people who can afford a private driver.
Para Transit
Para transit is a story in and of itself. I believe that it is a good thing that states, counties and even some municipalities offer this service but, based on my own experience and that of a number of people from various parts of the US, it is rarely a service that can be used reliably if time is a factor and in some cases it fails entirely. These government funded para transit systems provide a free or low cost method of transportation but have rules that make these systems very difficult to use for people who do not have a lot of spare time on their hands.
In all of the para transit systems I discussed in preparation for this article, one needs to schedule the ride at least 24 hours in advance (in one case, I heard of a para transit system that required two weeks notice for a reservation), making it impossible to run out for a last minute item one may have forgotten on a recent grocery run for instance. They also give their passengers an hour long window for when they will be picked up. Thus, if one has a 10:30 appointment that's a half hour ride from their home, they need to be ready at 9 o'clock but may need to wait around doing nothing until 10. If the driver arrives at 9, the passenger will arrive at their appointment an hour early and need to sit around waiting for their time slot. Then, once the appointment is over, they need to enter another hour long window to wait for their ride home. In many cases, the para transit vehicle will be carrying more than one passenger to more than one location so one may still arrive late for their appointment due to the driver being unable to take the most direct route. Para transit is a good idea with what seems to be rather poor execution.
In one example of a para transit disaster, a woman I know had to have a medical procedure some distance from her home. The para transit system in her area could not handle her request at all and she had to rely on the kindness of a neighbor to bring her to her appointment and back home again. In another case, a friend of mine left a doctor's appointment and waited for his para transit ride, while he was waiting the doctor's office closed for the night, more than an hour and a half later, a security guard helped him get a regular taxi as he had no other way home. I could continue and add more para transit horror stories but I think these two suffice to illustrate the point.
There was a trial program for para transit in New York City that got rave reviews from its users. Instead of running its own system, the City of New York would reimburse Uber and Lyft for carrying passengers with disabilities. So many people liked this program that they wrote a lot of letters to the mayor's office asking that it be continued. but the city chose to cancel the program anyway.
To be fair, I did hear two people describe relatively positive experiences using para transit. One said their window for waiting on a ride was only fifteen minutes and the other said that in her town, the para transit system is highly reliable and works very well for her. I've also been told that the state of Utah provides discounted rides with Uber or Lyft for passengers with disability but I could not find a reference for this online. These three examples are, however, outliers as all of the others to whom I spoke about para transit were very unhappy with their service.
Pedestrian Safety
Some blind people are fortunate enough to live in neighborhoods where they can walk to shops, restaurants and other points of interest. I have two homes, one in St. Petersberg, Florida and the other in Cambridge, Massachusetts and I have spent a lot of time in San Francisco over the past decade or so. From both of my homes and from the apartment where I would stay in San Francisco, I am able to walk independently with my guide dog to a lot of places but, in all of these locales, there are problems with pedestrian safety.
In St. Petersberg, sidewalks are very inconsistent. On my street, there is a sidewalk in front of my house and the house to my immediate north; there is no sidewalk in front of the house to my south and there's no sidewalk from my next door neighbor's house to the corner on the north. Walking around this neighborhood will have my dog and me walking in the street as their are some blocks where there is no sidewalk at all and others where the sidewalk is so poorly maintained so as to better be described as a pathway of rubble.
In Cambridge, perhaps the most left wing progressive city in the US, pedestrian safety is clearly a low priority. Major thoroughfares like Massachusetts Avenue, Broadway and Cambridge St. all have very well maintained, wide, concrete block sidewalks. If you go a block off of the main streets, though, you enter the neighborhoods, where people actually live. About 30 years ago, Cambridge decided to replace the perfectly utilitarian concrete sidewalks in the neighborhoods with a more decorative red brick. Over the past three decades, these brick sidewalks have deteriorated, there are spots where one will trip over a single brick missing or having been pushed up when the weather freezes. It's like walking on a red brick off road trail. To boot, Cambridge does little to enforce city codes so sidewalks are often obscured by overhanging shrubbery or tree limbs. Taking a walk in Cambridge can be quite an adventure and I can't imagine that it's possible at all in a wheelchair.
San Francisco has terrific sidewalks in every part of the city that I've visited. Their pedestrian safety issues arise at some of their very weird intersections, some of which have audio traffic controls, others that do not. I once had to cross Market St. (a very busy street with a light rail train running down the middle of it) at the three way intersection with Castro St. and 14th. At this star shaped intersection, some of the crosswalks run on an angle and often leave one on a traffic island from which they need to cross to another one or two until they reach their destination. On one occasion, I was with another blind person trying to cross at this location and we somehow got separated and found ourselves on two different traffic islands – fortunately, a kind person reunited us and helped us get to the spot where we were heading.
San Francisco and Cambridge are examples of cities that are reasonably good at pedestrian safety. Many other locales are profoundly worse. Please do tell your stories about pedestrian issues in your area in the comments section below as we'd like to hear them too.
Autonomous Cars
A whole lot of blind people to whom I've spoken long for the days when we will have safe and reliable autonomous cars to take us where we need to go. I believe that this innovation is further in the future than a lot of people seem to be predicting. It's hard to tell the state of the technology from mainstream media as one day you'll hear a story that contains a very optimistic view of autonomous vehicles and the next day you'll hear a story about a fatal accident caused by one of these cars.
I believe that today, where autonomous vehicles are permitted, they are required to have a driver in the driver's seat, thus excluding a blind person from operating the vehicle independently. The new Mercedes-Benz autonomous vehicle includes eye tracking technology to ensure that the person in the driver's seat is Properly watching the road – a feature that makes this model impossible for a blind person to use alone.
We must also consider the price of these vehicles with the autonomous driving package included. Adding the driving assistant feature to a new Tesla costs more than $10,000 on top of the already expensive vehicle. At this point in time, the Tesla driving assist feature does not provide full automation and requires a driver to be paying attention. I think it will be a pretty long time before blind people will have an autonomous vehicle they can operate independently and, when that happens, it's going to be very expensive.
Unemployment
Totally blind people have an estimated 70-80% rate of unemployment and, according to the US Department of Labor, this number drops to 40% unemployment when people considered legally blind are included. I'm speaking only to the totally blind here as, for me at least, work and many other things were much easier when I was considered low vision. There are many professions that are closed to blind people, including many of the highest paying career paths. I know a lot of blind software engineers, I know a lot of blind accessibility specialists, I know a few blind working musicians, I know a few blind lawyers, I know some blind technical support technicians but this number is shrinking as most companies have outsourced their tech support to other nations, I know some blind people working in the Randolph-Shepherd program running their own small businesses, I know a few blind social workers, I know a handful of blind professors and I've heard of a few blind psychiatrists. I also know a lot of blind people who work performing services for other blind people. I have never heard of a blind non-software engineer, laboratory research scientist, chemist, biologist, medical professional excepting psychiatry, construction worker, plumber, electrician, carpenter, auto worker and nearly every other job that I didn't mention in the sentence listing the jobs where I know blind people who perform them. The lists of jobs above is certainly not comprehensive and was written off of the top of my head, you may know blind people working in professions I didn't include and I ask that you please mention them in the comments section below.
We need to ask, why are some jobs doable by blind people while others are not. My honest opinion is that the barriers are often due to inaccessible technologies. A lot of corporations use proprietary software designed for their sole purposes and I've never heard of this kind of software being accessible. As more and more professional software is developed using cross platform frameworks and off-the-shelf web tools, more and more software becomes inaccessible and more and more blind people find themselves out of work. It can be difficult to maintain a sense of pride when, no matter how hard one tries, they cannot land a decent job.
Other Obstacles
There are lots of other examples I could add to this list but as this is already a long article, I'll leave them out. If you have encountered any such obstacles to success, please write a comment describing such as I'd be interested to hear about them. Conversely, if you know of jobs that blind people are doing that I neglected to mention, please also put them in the comments section as I'll be the first to admit that I do not know everything.
The Question Of A Cure
It is impossible to create a single cure for cancer because cancer isn't a single disease but a category of diseases. A single medical cure for blindness will be equally impossible as there is a wide variety of conditions ranging from accidents to retinitis pigmentosa to diabetes that can cause blindness. Thus far, those working on hardware solutions to blindness have not been able to permit the patient to see more than a few pixels and I believe electronic "cures" are far off in the future.
In preparation for this article, I queried a number of blind people with the question, "If there was a cure for your blindness, would you take it?" Nearly all of the respondents and I said that we would accept a cure in a New York minute. A few people, all whom have been blind since birth, said they would forego a cure. The majority of blind people in the US were not born blind and, based on my informal survey, most, therefore, would accept a cure. While I feel no shame over my blindness, the mere fact that I'd give it up in an instant makes me feel a bit ambivalent about the notion of blind pride. Can I truly be proud of a characteristic of myself that I would happily give up as soon as modern medicine or technology was able to provide a remedy?
The cure question is a really hard one. I would give almost anything to be low vision again and be able to see as well as when I was thirty years old, 31 years ago. Then, I could still read books, use a computer with no access technology, walk around in unfamiliar places comfortably (I readily admit that I do not have the greatest orientation and mobility skills), get around town without the aid of my lovely wife, see the lovely flora and fauna that's all around me here in my Florida home, attend baseball games alone and enjoy the action visually rather than having to listen to a radio broadcast to understand what is happening, enjoy the art in museums that Sina hasn't made accessible yet and so much more. I'd still be legally blind but that was far easier for me.
Conclusions
As I said at the start of this piece, I agree with Jonathan Mosen and believe there is a lot blind people can be proud of. We can be proud of our history, we can be proud of blind individuals who do remarkable things, we can be proud of the rank and file blind people who, with all sorts of barriers in their way, manage to live productive lives. We can and should be organizing and working to tear down the barriers to our success and not stop fighting for equality until we have it in our grasp.
I'm Blind And I'm Proud
Uh! With your blind self!
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
Some people say we've got a lot to stop us,
Some say we have a lot of nerve,
But I say we won't quit pushing until we get what we deserve.
We have been pitied and we have been scorned,
They say, we shouldn't have ever been born.
But just as it takes two bad eyes to make others swear, ha,
Brother we just can't let them get our share.
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
I go to jobs with my cane in my hand,
But all the work I did was for the sighted man.
Now we help others like us, a good call,
With wearables and Braille as they help all.
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
We're people, just like those who can see,
We'd rather show them, that we can be free,
Not able to travel, is a fallacy,
With a cane or a dog, is our Reality.
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
One more time!
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
With talking smart phones, we read menus and books,
Doing many chores, as easy as it looks.
Blind people work in factories and farms,
Reading and traveling with fingers and arm's.
There is very little, that we can’t do,
No surprise, if we're workin' next to you.
Say it loud: I'm blind and I'm proud,
Goin' places, where we're not aloud.
Parody lyrics by Phil Vlasak, the best song satirist in the blind community. Based on the Song "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" by the late legend James Brown.
I now live in Lethbridge Alberta. Travelling by myself here is an inconsistent experience to put it politely. They don’t plow the roads. Intersections are at odd angles. There are maybe three APS (Accessible pedestrian signals) in the entire city. Enunciators on buses either do not work at all ore are set at volume too low to hear about 90% of the time. Although I looked for work outside of the accessibility industry (don’t fool yourself, this is an industry) nobody was hiring a blind guy.
Yes, if there were a cure that I could actually obtain for my blindness, I would sign up in a “new York minute”. The technology already exists to completely restore my sight, in fact, better than it has ever been. But at about $850,000 US, There is no way that I will be able to pay for it.
Still, I consider myself to be fortunate that I have been employed more than 1/3 of my totally blind years. Being blind, I can start meaningful conversations about accessibility, human dignity and what people can do to make a difference. It’s true that I went through a long, difficult angry period as my sight deteriorated and finally failed completely. But now, I count my blessings, make a difference where I can and keep my ear to the ground for advancements that make life better for everyone. Being blind is not something to be ashamed of or proud of. It just is. The real trick is to be me, not letting my disability or attitude towards it, define who I am.
I’ve never really thought about the idea of blind pride, but now that I’m thinking on it, I can’t think of a reason why we shouldn’t be proud and express that pride, while still fighting for things like disability rights of course. And yes, I agree with James above that accessibility is indeed an industry. I don’t think that’s all bad, but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we deny this.
In contrast to the vast majority of blind people being willing to accept a cure, there are many deaf people that say they’d refuse. (I’m just relating from over 20 years ago, nothing current. Sorry) There are Deaf cultures all over the world that benefit members’ self-esteem as well as being crucial to raising their educational and economic status. Therefore it’s easy to see why Deaf Pride is a viable outlook for many.
If there is such a culture embraced by Blind people then yes, Blind Pride is something to get behind.
Does such a culture exist? I wouldn’t know since I know only three blind people, Chris Hofstader included. If anyone’s willing to educate me on that I’d be grateful. (Thanks again Chris for your hospitality, the opportunity to meet musician Shelly Segal in person and for launching me into the stratosphere with whatever strain of cannabis that was. Damn!! So glad that’s legalized!!)
Also, my most frustrating experience with para transit in Phoenix wasn’t mine but my fellow passengers. My ride came less than ten minutes after I called, making me two hours early. But the other people were more than two hours late and very, very exasperated. I told the driver Please, drop them off first but no, dispatch made it clear to a very frustrated driver that I was the one who should be served first. Wtf???
I’m a little confused by the idea of pride and being proud of something. Maybe I have a very self centric attitude.
I can feel pride or shame about how I handled some challenge. I’m proud I resisted hitting that person’s chair hard with my cane though they were sitting in the middle of the walkway. Or feel shame when I didn’t try hard enough to resist.
I can be proud of my children but that’s somewhat an extension of myself.
I can be proud of my company or community but that’s partly because I have a voluntary association there. It’s still a reflection of my choices and conduct.
that said, I like the article and it does make good points.
I live in the SF Bay Area and second Chris’s opinion of The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Also, Sina was and continues to be very generous with his time for me. He encouraged me shortly after I lost my sight in an accident to get back on the computer. I was, and still am a software developer.
Software development and high tech in general is a great opportunity for the blind. And accessibility is an industry and there’s nothing wrong with that, not saying anyone was implying that. And yes, many frameworks do make it less likely a web app will be accessible by default. The other edge of that sword though is all the really big frameworks are open source. I’m quite sure the developers and maintainers would love for blind developers to jump in and help make accessibility the default, or at least enforced by convention standard.
I like what James said especially the part about being blind … just is. I try to act in a way I can be proud of and hopefully reflect well on the blind community.
Yes, if I could get my sight back I’d do it, though certainly not at any cost. Blindness has given me a new perspective on life and a purpose I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’m grateful for that.
What a great article Chris!
Thanks for mentioning me, I am honored to be considered a person that has influenced your thinking about our community somehow.
I agree with you on just about every point. I have never really thought about “blind pride“ but, I am proud of my accomplishments in spite of being blind, and the way that others deal with it. I.e., like Many, I have never really had a problem with my own blindness. I have only had a problem with the way that I am judged and perceived by those who don’t identify as blind. :-)
Anyway, great article, glad to see you are writing again my friend!
The happiest of holidays to you and Susan, happy new year!
The biggest, ongoing problem, is people making assumptions, and, in this context, I am referring to both blind/Vi and sighted/mainstream individuals – assuming that we can either not perform an activity, or that we require specific forms of assistance, or assisstive technology to be able to – Chris, you know my history, and that I try to promote ability awareness through things like my blind bike riding events, and, besides the fun part of it, I am also trying to get the sighted world to ‘open their eyes’ 😉
Desultory here in South Africa, it’s quite a tragedy to live with a guide dog when you are completely blind.
As you said, it would’ve been easy for you to have your side that you have 31 years ago, it would’ve been the same thing for me if I could have my side back that I had when I was growing up.
I was not completely cited, but I wasn’t completely blind either, and I could get easily to where I needed to go without the use of a cane or anything.
Being blind for me has just made it a bit more challenging too get around things, hence my mind always has to be in a solution mode all the time. Working in a studio where there is only sighted people, comes with its own set of challenges, and if you are trying to make them see you as your equal Is challenging when you have a screen reader that is yapping in Your ear all the time, and if you want to hear something through the monitors at the studio, you have to silence the speech because you don’t wanted to make noise, because they don’t need that no wanted, and they even tell you as much.
When you walk with a guide dog, with in some of our communities, some of them become really scared of the dog thinking that the dog will bite them, even though it’s not even coming towards them it is to such an extent, that you are very lucky to find accommodation if you have a guide dog and wanting to rent a flat.
Even though cited a people don’t say it in their own words, but they are pushing as with their actions, and order to make us see that we are not welcome in there world.
Although technology, has gone so far as to accommodate us as much as possible, I don’t see it as enough yet, and I feel that technology can do a lot more to accommodate us as well.
I’ll give you examples of this, the prices of our technology, is way too high, and all of us can afford it.
It’s like if ever they put something with Blind in it, they skyrocket the price of that thing.
The blind shell classic for example, it’s a candy bar style kind of phone, and I’m pretty sure if it was not made specifically for a blind person, you would’ve paid roughly, 50 to 80 maybe 100 or $150 max for that kind of phone, but because it’s just for a blind person, it’s skyrocketing up to $500 and for what
I don’t care if they’re even saying that the market for the phone is for old people, or people who does not want to deal with tuchscreens, I would rather teach my mum and dad an iPhone, as to buying them that phone
There is a lot more examples that I can give you, but I don’t want to make this comment too long, but in closing, a lot more can be done to accommodate blind people, and stop making us feel that we are in true this of the sighted world
These are wonderful articles
Blind Pride, yes indeed, but proud of being blind, I am not so sure.
While we do have much to take pride in, achievements despite our inability to see, and others may praise our ‘amazing’ abilities to do normal things, most of these are personal achievements and never shared with the public. I lost my vision slowly after being declared ‘legally blind’ in high school, so I learned to read shapes on paper. It was such a thrill to learn. It was years later when learning contracted braille that I revisited that pleasure, the pleasure of learning and overcoming an obstacle. There is pride in that achievement, the same pride in first grade when I read those ink symbols. Some, I feel, are abashed to have to learn braille or use a white cane or dog guide, but a girlfriend once told me that she was embarrassed by me when I did not have my white cane. She pointed out that people get offended when I don’t take an offered hand to shake, or answer a wave, so I came out of the closet as a blind guy, not with any false pride, but with assurance that I am a capable person.
I found an ad in the local paper for someone to put up a fence at our new home. The man who came was blind and he gave us a good price. The fence still stands years later. He did have a teen who worked with him. He did a good job.
At our local airport the office manager is blind. At a local hotel the reservations clerk is blind.
I am a blind social worker and psychotherapist for over 40 years. After nearly 20 years working at a hospital based psychiatric program I was fired, without due notice or warning, for very minor problems, most associated with the electronic medical records that are not fully accessible. So, I am working in a number of other jobs, earning as much and working less. Also, waiting for our attorneys to quit bumping heads and come up with a settlement.
Of course, there are lots of blind folks working in the blindness field as counselors and the like. I am interested to know the percentage of employed blind people working outside of the blind rehabilitation system and programs. I imagine that our employment numbers would look even more pitiful if these jobs were not included.
Considering it all, I am not proud to be blind, but satisfied that I have made a life despite the roadblocks life has put in my way.
You, Chris, have stood up and been counted. Not always taking the popular stand but speaking truth to the system. I do take pride in your stands, some not so pretty, because that takes a certain courage and has helped to improve the lives of others. That is what I try to do in my community, in my own little ways.